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Mozambican Civil Society Within: Evaluation, Challenges, Opportunities and Action
For the purposes of the CSI research the INE mapping of different categories of non-profit
institutions was compared and made compatible with the CIVICUS categories. The latter,
although more detailed, needed structuring of the kind done by INE.
As shown in Annex 3, the INE (2006) categories with 12 groups and 29 subgroups were compared
and made compatible with the 20 categories proposed by CIVICUS. Table 2.1.2 presents the
list of uniform categories used in the project’s primary research, both the citizen and the CSO
surveys.
One critical note of caution must be mentioned explicitly for consideration in future research.
There are signs that Mozambican civil society has more complex dynamics than can be caught
by categories adapted to formal institutions.
This means that right from the start it must be admitted that the concepts and categories have
certain limitations when it comes to capturing relations that are socially relevant but cannot be
immediately formalized. For example, there are many community mutual assistance groups
that for reasons of definition were not captured by the INE research, and very probably they also
went unnoticed by the CSI project researchers. As Mozambican society is highly informal,
many institutions of an eminently informal but socially relevant nature were missed by research
that focused on formal institutions. For example, mutual assistance groups such as Kurhimela
Xitoco-Thothotho, Tsima-Ntimo, Xitique, Kurhimela, Kuthekela, Matsoni-Holimihana and
Mukhumi/Oteka (see Table 13 in Francisco and Paulo 2006: 84) are socially relevant forms of
civil society organization that someday should be taken into account. It is true that such groups
do not meet formality requirements but formality will have to consider ways of becoming more
socially relevant.
Civil Society Index, Mozambique 2007
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